Silent letters in English

Silent Letters

English can be pretty tricky a language sometimes. In the word 'whistle,' we do not pronounce the letters T and H. They are silent letters. 

Nearly every letter in the alphabets can be silent.

Silent letters show up because English language takes words and spellings from many different languages. The silent H at the beginning of a word comes from a rule in French language pronunciation. That’s why hour sounds like our. Silent Ks come from Old English, in which the present silent letters were actually pronounced, but over hundreds of years, the sound was dropped, leaving us with the words knife and knight, where we don’t pronounce the first letters. Sometimes silent letters are used to give us a clue how to pronounce things. If there is an E at the end of a word, it is often silent, but it usually lets us know a vowel that comes before it will have a “long” sound. This is why haze sounds like hays and not has.

There are hundreds of rules to help figure out how to spell and read words, but they do not work all the time. Often it can be very confusing. But, no worries, many veterans of the language find them confusing too! The more you read and practice spelling, the better you’ll be able to figure out how these silent letters work.

The Silent ABCs

A – heAd, cocoA, breAd

B – deBt, douBt, suBtle

C – sCene, sCissors

D – aDjust, WeDnesday, hanDkerchief, sanDwich

E – crazE, evEry, vegEtable, tempErature,litErature, pErhaps

F - halFpenny
G - aliGn, champaGne, diaphraGm, hiGh, liGht, reiGn, thouGh,
H - cHoir, exHaust, gHost, Heir, Hour, kHaki, scHool

I - busIness
J – MariJuana

K - blacKGuard, Knead, Knock, Knot, Know
L - caLf, caLm, chaLk, foLk, haLf, psaLm, yoLk
M - Mnemonic
N - autumN, columN, condemN, damN, hymN, solemN
O – colOnel, opOssum, Oestrogen
P – corPs, couP, Pneumonia, Pseudo, Psychology, receiPt
Q  -  RacQuet
R - butteR, gaRden, heRe, myrRh,
S - aiSle, apropoS, debriS, fracaS, iSland, iSle

T - asThma, balleT, casTle, GourmeT, lisTen, rapporT, sofTen, Thistle 

U - catalogUe, colleagUe, dialogUe, gUess, GUest, GUide, GUilt, GUitar, tongUe
V - (none) !!! (if you have one, please comment below)
W - ansWer, sWord, tWo, Whole, Whore, Wrist, Writ, Write
X - fauX pas
Y – praYer
Z – laisseZ, rendeZvous